Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Let's Go Ride a Bike

I have a confession to make. I am a failure as a mother.

Let me elaborate. My over-achieving, good at everything, type A six-and-a-half year old doesn't know how to ride a bike. Looking back on my failure, I can't for the life of me figure out how this happened.
He's always had a bike. First a tricycle, then a small bike with training wheels, then a larger bike with training wheels that Grandpa had to get for him (it's a John Deere bike). Over the years we talked about taking off the training wheels, and Tucker always put it off for another day. He was never very interested in learning. It wasn't important to him.

Then last year at Christmas the boys wanted to get Trey a bike so they could all go ride bikes together. I thought it would be the perfect push to get Tucker on two wheels, so we got Daddy a bike.

The bike, however, turned out to be problematic. See, sometimes I'm, well, cheap. I didn't know if Trey would actually ride the bike, so I encouraged the boys to pick out the one that was $80 at Target. I figure if he loved it and rode it all the time, we could get him a cool bike for Father's Day in June. Basically, we picked out a test bike.

A test bike that Trey doesn't like. He's never actually voiced his displeasure, but I can tell. The bike is apparently rather trendy, and it's certainly not something Trey can see himself out riding around the neighborhood on. I should have remembered about my (dare I say) picky husband when I purchased the test bike, but I was too busy trying to be cheap. Either way, I don't believe he's ever actually been on it outside the privacy of our back patio. It looks something like this:


Sorry, Trey, if you are offended by my honesty. You are welcome to add your comments. Please remember that I love you. :) (If anyone reading this has a cool used bike that they'd like to trade for a trendy new bike, let me know.)
Back to the point of the story. About two months ago in a fit of wild determination, I took the training wheels off of Tucker's bike. I figured he'd sink or swim. Learn to ride the bike or don't ride at all. Tough love, that's what I was doing.

It didn't work. He still just didn't care. He'd much rather be playing baseball in the front yard than falling off a bike in the back, so he never practiced.

Then, for Keaton's fourth birthday on June 6th, he wanted (you guessed it!) a bike. Again, my determination to get Tucker on two wheels grew deeper. Surely he would want to out-do his baby brother who was on training wheels.

I told Trey that Tucker would learn to ride a bike this summer if we had to practice day and night. He can't be the only kid in first grade who doesn't know how to do it. I refused to let it happen. So Trey put a twenty dollar bill on the bar and told Tucker it was his when he could ride. Boy, did that get him practicing! Being Tucker, of course he didn't want too much help. He just wants to keep trying to figure it out himself.

In the mean time, we became a three bike family with a lazy mom. Thus, I began my quest for a cheap, used ladies bike. I scoured the school district's swap shop, message boards with classifieds, and craigslist. There were plenty of used women's bikes -- for like $200. Aside from domestic automobiles, nothing used should cost $200. The bike I was looking for didn't exist.
Until yesterday when God sent it to me. I happened to check craigslist at about 4:30, someone happened to post a bike for sale for $50, I happened to reply that I'd pay $30, and the person happened to respond that I had to pick it up by 6:30 because she was moving to another city. Coincidence? I don't think so, either. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I went with my gut.

Here's my new bike:





The young woman I purchased it from said it works great and even has a brand new chain. She told me the back brakes need to be adjusted, and I said, "Oh, that's no big deal" even though I have no concept of what that actually means. It's rusty, the seat is torn on the side, and it needs some paint, but now I can finally take the boys on a bike ride. Just like a good mother would do.

Except Tucker still can't do it. He works and works and tries and tries and just can't figure it out. I keep telling him he's doing great and that once he gets it he'll be riding all over the place, but to no avail. I keep waiting for our sitcom moment - just like when Ben Seaver and Bobby Brady and Jennifer Keaton finally took off amidst the cheers of their entire families. It only took them thirty minutes to learn to ride a bike, and that was including commercials!

So if any of you are professional bike riding instructors, please pass along your wisdom. Help the Hickman family become those annoying people taking up the whole sidewalk with their family bike rides. If your advice is really good, we may even let you come along!

5 comments:

BFN said...

I would like to share an anecdote:

I learned to ride my bike with training wheels that were broken. You see, as I rode, the training wheels would slide out of place little by little. If I leaned to the right, up went the right-side training wheel. If I leaned to the left, up went the left side training wheel. After a few minutes of riding, both training wheels couldn't touch the ground at the same time, and I would ride on one or the other.
One day, as I was riding along in the cul-de-sac along 35 Helena Ct. in the Falling Waters subdivision of Sharpsburg, GA, my training wheels were suddenly parallel with the ground ... but I didn't know, because I was just riding my BICYCLE! :)

Jodi Barrett said...

I don't have any good advice but I did laugh out loud at your new bike! haha :-) It is still making me giggle a little bit.

stephtowns said...

I don't have any advice for you either, as Tyler just decided on his own about a month ago that it was time to take the training wheels off. Patrick worked with him on Sunday, pretty much all day. Then that Monday afternoon, after we got home from school/work, he told me that he was going to practice riding his bike, with a reply from me, "Please let me go in and change, and I will be right out." A scream from my child, "Mom! Did you see that?" I did it all by myself." And sure enough, he got on it and went with no help from either of us. Just be patient. He will get it, I promise.

Anonymous said...

BFN is correct, I remember it well. He learned first, and then the very determined, has never liked not being on top, SPN taught himself. SPN fell, over and over again, after insisting that his training wheels come off, even though he had not mastered the feat. Then we had 5 riders:)

The Big Red Poet said...

You HAVE used the time-honored method of gripping Tuck's bicycle seat from the back, underneath his butt, and running alongside the bike while he pedals, right? That way, you can hold him up while he gets going and then just let him go once he establishes his momentum. I'm tellin' ya, both of my brothers and I learned to ride that way, and none of us sustained any major injuries.